Tag Archives: Slum sanitation

Four years after news agency IRIN released its award-winning documentary film “Slum Survivors”, its makers returned to the Kenyan slum of Kibera to see what had happened to the main characters.

One of the most striking sequences of the film showed Patrick Mburu emptying pit latrine toilets in the dead of night. He did not much care for the job but the money was good and as he put it at the time, “I’ll carry as much shit as it takes to keep my kid in school.”

Four years later Patrick is still emptying toilets and his kid is still in school – and doing quite well by all accounts.

See below the section of “Slum Survivors” that follows Patrick at work at night emptying shared latrines [segment starts at 1.50].

An interdisciplinary research program entitled “Integrated approaches and strategies to address the Sanitation Crisis in Unsewered Slum Areas in African mega-cities (SCUSA)”, funded by the UNESCO-IHE Partnership Research Fund (UPaRF), will be carried out by UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (Delft, The Netherlands), Makerere University, and the Kampala City Council, both in Uganda.

The SCUSA research program has identified three PhD projects, centered around a slum area of Kampala for which PhD researchers are being recruited:

MUMBAI: When American talk show host Jay Leno quipped that Indians can send a rocket into space but cannot build a decent toilet, he probably had the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in mind.

The BMC’s tall claims of constructing 20,000 toilet seats in one year stands exposed after it was revealed that it managed only 120 new seats in the past 24 months. More shocking was the fact that these toilets were all constructed in just one area-Bhandup. Sources said it was not due to lack of funds, but political interference that was responsible for this state of affairs. This year, the BMC budgeted Rs 38 crore for construction of new toilets and Rs 20 crore for retrofitting existing toilets. The project is being taken up under the Slum Sanitation Programme (SSP). (…)

“Kampala’s population is soaring with many people living in slum areas. However, the law does not allow KCC, the major provider of sanitation services, to work with informal settlements, writes Frederick Womakuyu.

An overflowing pit latrine empties its contents into a worm-infested drainage channel in front of Catherine Namubiru’s home in Kisenyi, a Kampala slum. Less than 10 such latrines serve a population of 3,000 people living in this area.

The latrines are dilapidated with rusty iron sheets for walls, cracked floors and are roofed with plastic material. Little wonder that many inhabitants of “Mogadishu” in the heart of Kisenyi use ‘flying toilets‘ “.

[…]

While initiatives like the Kampala Urban Sanitation Project (KUSP) have lead to some improvement, “the problem of flying toilets will remain with us as long as the Government does not set up a clear policy to deal with slums”, says Fred Katabazi, the director of Tweyembe Development Association, an NGO that seeks to improve sanitation in slums. “People keep migrating from rural to urban areas,” he added.

(…) According to a World Bank report, Dhaka is the fastest expanding city in the world. It has now got nearly 1.2 crore people with approximately 3-4 lakh poor joining it every year. The city’s population is apprehended to hit 2 crore in 2020, making it the World’s third largest city. (…)

Unfortunately, Dhaka cannot cope with its growing population. A significant portion or the city’s populace lives in slums. These people have virtually no access to the city’s sanitation and sewerage facilities. Among 1,925 slums mentioned in the report, there is only one public toilet each in only 43 slums. (….)

Dear SUSANA colleagues, I would like to forward this newsletter of the NGO ‘Children Without Worms', where the current discussion on mass deworming is addressed. Best regards Bella Bella Monse GIZ Philippines Link to the newsletter: www.childrenwithoutworms.org/quarterly-dose First image of newsletter: Begin forwarded message: (note by moderator: the ne […]

Dear Graham, I think the BSF (black soldier fly) would not be grown inside of the pit but at an external place as it needs rather controlled conditions, and probably more oxygen than what would be available inside of the pit. Or perhaps I misunderstood your question? Regards, Elisabeth

Hi Eng. Mughal I very well agree with your observations. Tahunganh needs some assistance in substance. As far as I know, Dr. Barbara Senkwe PhD of USAID SUWASA has done such work in the South Sudan but I doubt if she is still available on her email address at bsenkwe@ard-suwasa.org as the project is winding up soon. We featured her article ‘An Emerging Fecal […]

Hi Virginia Thanks for your important work you are doing in Madagascar. The country was in focus in March this year as its president Mr. Hery Rajaonarimampianina became the first Chief of State in the world to sign a pledge in public to end open defecation. We presented a short mention of this in our Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene May-June 2015 editi […]

Hi Kris Thank you very much for your thoughts. We agree with your concerns. That's why we have given so much importance to develop the protocol so easy and cost effective which can potentially be done at the local level. However, phage therapy has been successful to treat diarrhoeal infection in human gut which is as complex as waste water system. Moreo […]

Integration of Nutrition and WaSH programmes was the key topic discussed at the multi sectorial panel seminar hosted by Irish Aid, the IFGH and the Development Studies Association of Ireland on the 19th May.

Sustainability is without doubt one of the most burning subject matters that subsumes many of the issues that we are seeing in CLTS and wider WASH practice.On Wednesday 24th June, from 14.00-15.30 BST (convert to your time zone here), the CLTS Knowledge Hub will offer a webinar on the subject.

Over 50 female leaders from around the world recently published a declaration calling for the end of poor sanitation and hygiene in the developing world. Among those leaders are the first ladies of Madagascar and Malawi, both of whom announced the declaration in Washington, D.C.